A King on the C Train (Tattoosday Plays the Alphabet Game)

In our continuing journey on the New York City subway one day last month, I set my sights on the C train. Please see the summary post here for the first part of the challenge.

9:20am, I'm on a southbound C that I grabbed at West 4th Street.

I am trying to get a woman's attention on the C. She has a small Keith Haring tattoo on her forearm, but she is buried in her phone and has earbuds in. And a Basquiat tattoo, which I only noticed when she got up to get off at Chambers Street. :-(

9:27am, back at Fulton Street, switching over to a northbound C train.

9:30am Northbound C train, I meet Jeffrey, who is kind enough to share this cool "suicide king" tattoo:

Although the heart symbol is not in the tattoo, one is instantly reminded of the King of Hearts playing card, commonly referred to as the "Suicide King," because of the way he is holding his sword, it appears as if he is driving it through his own head.

Jeffrey told me he just "liked the idea of" the tattoo, and credited artist Phil DeAngulo (@midwestphil) from Behind the Circle (@behind_the_circle) in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Thanks to Jeffrey for sharing his tattoo with us here on Tattoosday as we ride the rails and play the Alphabet Game. Tune in tomorrow to see what we found on the D train!

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Four from Frank

It may be the middle of October, but I am still working with a handful of summer photos, like those I took of Frank, who shared four of his ten pieces with us.

The first one is by Cris Element at Puncture Tattoo Studios in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn:

He was reluctant to share the meaning of this tattoo, saying it was personal, but he did elaborate on three others, done by Taze at Groove Tattoo in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. This one, for example, he told me was because "I was born on June 7th [and] I got no luck so maybe I'll get some luck out of this tattoo...".

 

Frank indicated that the element of time figured into this piece, with the naked woman representing life, and the skull representing death:

 

And this one, also by Taze, represents that he had "the best times of [his] life skateboarding":

Thanks to Frank for sharing his ink with us here on Tattoosday!

 

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

The World is Full of Kings and Queens . . .

I've been relying heavily on Tattoos I Know since the end of summer, but today, in the chill of January, I spotted a cool tattoo on a stranger and added him to the Tattoosday gallery:


It was in the mid-30's when I asked Frank about his tattoo. He gladly offered up his newest piece, this playing card queen.

Frank is heavily-inked. He briefly flashed a leg and an arm covered with tattoos. But we stuck with this one. This particular piece, his newest, was done by Mike Profetto at Designs by Michael Angelo in Brooklyn.

When I asked him why he had this queen of hearts, he said it only made sense to complement the king of diamonds on the right side of his neck:


Incidentally, that's a spider in the middle the two royal tattoos.

The queen, being the newer piece, is much brighter and crisper.

Frank is the first Tattoosday subject to offer up side neck pieces. He gave me his contact information, so I hope to feature Frank's work again in the future, with more detail about his tattoos, and the stories behind them.

Thanks again Frank!